It seemed that nothing cheered Sirius up as much as some good rule breaking. The more extreme the broken rule, the more boisterous he became.

"I'd lock that cloak up, if I were you," Remus muttered to James one evening. "Or it's going to disappear one of these days."

"What are you talking about?" Sirius asked, playing with the cloak. "I can't hear you when you're whispering like that."

"We were just considering the possibility that you're only friends with me so that you can borrow my clothes," James said, nodding at the cloak. In the previous two weeks, Sirius had taken off three times with the cloak, once with James, and twice alone.

"Hey, if not for me, we wouldn't know about that passage behind that statue," Sirius pointed out. Through a combination of luck and quick thinking, he had evaded Filch the previous night by disappearing into the same statue of the one-eyed witch that they had all hidden behind when trying to find the kitchens.

"That's true," James said. "I really want to know where it leads." He looked dangerously thoughtful.

"We could go-" Sirius began excitedly, and Remus sighed and shook his head. "Come on, Remus!" Sirius cried pleadingly. "Where's your sense of adventure?"

"My sense of adventure took me to detention last night," he said. "Which is why I have so much homework to do tonight." He had, against his better judgment, agreed when Sirius had suggested they see what happened if they added powdered bicorn horn to their Forgetfulness Potion. Sirius had found the resulting explosion to be very entertaining, but unfortunately, Professor Slughorn had not agreed.

"Fine," Sirius sighed. "This weekend?""

"Maybe," Remus said. Every time James or Sirius suggested an adventure, he felt torn. The adventures were almost always fun, but he was constantly worried that sooner or later, they would cross the line. James and Sirius were in detention constantly, and Peter almost as frequently, and the teachers no longer showed the slightest sign of surprise at their cavalier rule breaking. Remus, however, always showed up in detention feeling embarrassed and slightly guilty. Perhaps it was because he showed remorse that the teachers always seemed slightly amused when he was involved with the troublemaking. Still, the fact was that he was getting into trouble more and more, and he was sure that at some point, the teachers would reach their limits.

"Oh, lighten up, Moony," James said. "We only have a few weeks left to maraud around the castle.

"Well, when you put it that way..." Remus said, trying not to smile.

"Is that a yes?" Sirius asked excitedly. Remus hesitated only a moment, and nodded.

----------

"Stop trying to charm your food and eat it," Sirius said as Remus made a strawberry do somersaults around his plate.

"Sorry," Remus said, grabbing the berry and popping it into his mouth.

"You're going to do fine," James assured him. "Your fruits do gymnastics far better than anyone else's."

"I just wish I had more time to study," Remus said. "I'm going to be so tired!" He glanced up at the enchanted ceiling, where the sun was already sliding out of sight. He would have one day to recover from the full moon, but the first thing the following morning would be his charms exam.

"You studied more than the rest of the first years put together," Peter said, rolling his eyes.

"Yes, well, I would have gotten to study more if I hadn't spent half of last week in detention," Remus said pointedly. His three friends grinned at each other.

"Right," James said. "Sorry about that."

"Next time we have to split up and run, I'm taking the cloak," Remus said. James was the only one who had escaped getting caught during their attempt to explore the newfound passage. First Filch, and then McGonagall, had nearly gone mad trying to find him. They had known there was no way that Sirius, Remus and Peter were all out and about at night, and James was back in Gryffindor Tower, behaving himself. However, when their search turned up fruitless and McGonagall went to check Gryffindor Tower, James had been sitting in the common room, studying for final exams and appearing quite innocent.

"It's almost time to go, Moony," James said, glancing at the ceiling.

"Right," Remus said, cramming all the food on his plate into his mouth in only a few bites, then jumping up. As he was leaving, he saw an owl swoop into the hall, and heard Sirius's voice behind him say, "Not another one!" He felt a little bit guilty, but he had to keep walking. He would check on Sirius tomorrow.

As he approaching the hospital wing, he heard a number of voices inside of it.

"It was all my fault," a girl was saying. "I was trying to fake her out, make her think I was going for the right goal and then go for the left, right? But then we collided..." the girl sounded like she was on the verge of tears. As Remus walked in, he saw the Ravenclaw Quidditch team all crowded around a cot where their keeper lay, knocked out cold. Madame Pomfrey was bustling around, gathering up potions.

Remus cleared his throat slightly, and he could tell by the look on her face that she had completely forgotten he was coming. She looked back and forth between him and the girl, clearly unsure of what she should do. Remus walked around the group of Ravenclaws.

"It's okay," he said quietly, so that the other students couldn't hear. "I can go by myself."

"Are you sure?" Madame Pomfrey frowned, her eyes still darting between him and the unconscious keeper. "Can you get in?"

"Sure," Remus said. "We learned how to levitate things last semester. Really, it's no problem."

Madame Pomfrey didn't look happy about it, but she agreed to let him go alone, insisting that she would come and check up on him as soon as she had the Quidditch player taken care of. Remus wasn't really sure what this meant, seeing as how she could hardly come into the shack once he was a wolf. As far as he could tell, the best she would be able to do would be to stand there and stare at the tree. He didn't say this though. He merely assured her that he would be fine, and set off down the familiar path. The sun was already slipping below the horizon as he approached the Whomping Willow, and he quickened his pace.

"Locomotor mortis!"

Remus hadn't even realized that there were other students out on the grounds until his legs locked together and he pitched forward into the ground. He felt a flare of panic as he looked at the sky. He really didn't have much time to get to the shack.

"Look who it is!" His heart sank when he heard the voice. "It's one of my wee cousin's little mudblood friends."

Somehow, he didn't think it would make much difference to point out to Bella that he was actually a half-blood, not a muggleborn.

"I've been hoping I would run into one of you," she said as she walked up with several other Slytherins. He recognized Avery, who James had beat up at the beginning of the year, and the pale first-year whose potions James and Sirius kept sabotaging during class. "You all weren't very nice to me the other day,"

"Listen," Remus said urgently, frantically trying to get his legs to break apart. "You've got to let me go!"

The Slytherins all laughed, and Bella smirked, a vicious smirk that was strikingly unlike Sirius's mischievous one. She held out her arms, which still bore the faint marks of Sirius's curse. "It hurt quite a bit, you know," she said conversationally. "It's a painful curse. Sirius screamed and screamed when we were younger. He hid in a cabinet for an hour after, crying." She laughed, and the other Slytherins snickered obligingly.

"I really don't care," Remus said. He couldn't tell if the tightness in his muscles was because he was panicking, or because the transformation was already beginning. His voice rose with alarm. "Please let me go!"

"Please let me go!" she mimicked. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Remus felt an incredible repulsion, a shock that Sirius's cousin could be so vicious. The tiny wave of pity for his friend, however, was overwhelmed by the fear that not only was his secret about to be exposed, but there was a very good chance that someone was going to get hurt. He was in the middle of the Hogwarts grounds, and he seriously doubted that the leg-locker curse would continue to work on him once he was in wolf form.

"You know, he didn't do the curse quite right," Bella said, grinning at Remus's fear. "He's only twelve, after all. I've had a few more years to perfect the skill. Shall I show you?"

"Petrificus totalus!" Bella only showed the slightest sign of surprise before she went rigid and fell over. Remus turned to see his three friends, running as fast as they could towards them. At the same moment, he felt his muscles cramp in a way that he knew had nothing to do with fear.

"Go back!" He yelled at them, gagging slightly on the words. The pain was incredible, nearly unbearable, just as it always was, but now there was terror along with it. No, no, no! Not James! Not Sirius! Not Peter! As he watched his three best friends race towards him, he had never been so afraid in his entire life.

The Slytherins had scattered. Even though they outnumbered James, Sirius, and Peter, something about the crazed, panicked way the three first-years were approaching, full speed and throwing hexes, apparently chased the Slytherins off.

He felt the searing pain of his bones shifting, and he knew that he was screaming. He felt the presence of a wolf push into his mind, and he tried to push back. Then he felt two pairs of hands pick him up. He could smell them. Ahead, he saw Peter moving a stick to push the knot on the tree. James and Sirius had him by his arms and legs, and were running in a full-out sprint to the tunnel's entrance. They pitched him as hard as they could, without any pretense of gentleness, into the tunnel.

"Run!" James screamed. As Remus sprinted along the tunnel, stumbling, half wolf, half boy, trying to reach the shack, the human part of his mind realized that James had probably been yelling at Sirius and Peter, and not at him.

----------

Not only did Remus not sleep, but he thought that in the six years since he had been bitten, he had never experienced such a violent and painful night. The fear and panic in the human part of him had carried over, creating a frightened, frantic wolf that tore through the shack, howling, destroying everything it could find, looking for the source of the fear. After he transformed back the next morning, he didn't move. He lay motionless on his stomach on the floor, looking at the slit of light coming through the crack that he and Sirius had once peeked through, watching a group of Slytherins running from the shack.

He closed his eyes. It was over. Forbidden trips into the Shrieking Shack, midnight missions to the kitchens, watching James and Sirius beat each other up in the dormitory... all of it was over.

It seemed painfully obvious now what a bad idea it had been to come to Hogwarts in the first place. He had heard rumors that Dumbledore was slightly mad, but he had never really believed any of them. Now he realized the Dumbledore must indeed be a complete lunatic to have turned a werewolf loose amidst his students. Remus Lupin, a very good student. Remus Lupin, friend of James and Sirius and Peter. But in the end, still just Remus Lupin, a werewolf.

He didn't cry, like he thought he would when the moment came. He just felt a kind of emptiness.

One year. The thought was bittersweet. All he had asked for was one year, and next week, the Hogwarts express would carry all of the students back to London. He would ask Dumbledore if he could stay until then, if he could ride the train back with his friends. That should be all right, he figured. Then he really would have had one year.

"Are you all right, Mister Lupin?"

Remus jumped at the voice calling from in the tunnel. He had not even heard Professor Dumbledore approach. He grabbed his robes and pulled them on quickly.

"You're usually already out by this time," Dumbledore said gently as he entered. He sat down in one of the mangled chairs, watching Remus. "Are you all right?"

Remus nodded, staring at the floor. "Yes sir," he whispered.

"I imagine you had quite a scare last night," Dumbledore said kindly.

"Yes sir."

"I spoke with the students responsible for, shall we say, 'detaining' you. Their stories seem to match up with your friends' accounts." Remus nodded. "None of them saw anything," Dumbledore concluded gently. "Most of them had run away, and Miss Black landed facing away from the events. She's quite confused by what she heard, but the point is just that – she is confused. She knows nothing."

Remus was confused. Why was Dumbledore telling him all of this? Did it matter if they knew?

"Clearly, next year, we shall have to make sure that a teacher is always there to escort you." Dumbledore was frowning. "Like Madame Pomfrey, I would not have foreseen any problem with you taking yourself to the tree. It seems, however, that Poppy and I were both quite mistaken." Remus thought he saw a flash of anger in the Headmaster's usually twinkling eyes as he said those words.

"What?" Remus said stupidly. "Next year?"

"Yes, of course," Dumbledore said. "School ends next week, Remus! There are no more full moons this term."

"But... I can come back?" he couldn't believe what he was hearing. All of his thoughts about Dumbledore being a lunatic had completely flown out of his head.

"Of course," Dumbledore said. "If you still want to, that is. I can understand after an incident like last night if-"

"No, I want to!" Remus said hurriedly. "I want to come back! I love Hogwarts!"

Dumbledore beamed. "Excellent!" he said. "It's always good to hear students so enthusiastic about the pursuit of their magical education."

For a moment, Remus could have sworn that Dumbledore was holding in a laugh, but then the moment was over, and Dumbledore was standing. "Let's get you out of here and back into the comfort of Gryffindor Tower," he said, motioning Remus out first. "I daresay it is of the utmost importance to you that you be well rested for your exams tomorrow." He paused, then sounding pleasantly surprised with the thought, said, "You know, Mister Lupin, I believe you're one of the few students for whom that may actually be true."